Despair and Hope---Chapter Seven
by Kari
Summary: FINALLY! Chapter 7 is up! John Dawson discovers the truth about Rose.


Despair and Hope---Chapter Seven 

By Kari Raines 

New email: TrekGirl2000@netscape.net 

Note: I already have up to chapter 10 written and posted on my website: http://members.xoom.com/JadeSabre/despair.html 

You can either read it there or wait for me to post the chapters here, and I should have that done in the next few days. Sorry, they've been slow in coming. Thankx. ;-) 

~~~~~~~~~~ 

Two months after the sinking of RMS Titanic--New York City: 

He sat silently in the darkness, fingers tapping impatiently on the arm of the overstuffed chair. He sighed, pressing his handsome face into the palms of his hands. His face, although still young, had aged two or three years in the last couple of months. 

Two months. It had been two months, and there was nothing. He should have accepted the inevitable the day he did not see her face among the survivors--the day after the tragedy. But his stubborn pride would not let him give up. 

Rose was his. HIS, dammit. He had been so certain that she had snuck away with that gutter rat, but Dawson's name was not on the survivor list. Hell, his name was not even on the passenger list. 

But he just knew that somehow she had survived. She was Rose--his Rose; his stubborn Rose with a mind all of her own. 

But two months had gone by without a trace of evidence, and his once-healthy face was gaunt with sleeplessness. Dark circles were forming under his eyes. He had even been lax in his social duties. 

Maybe, finally, it was time for Caledon Hockley to give up on his lost treasure. He frowned in distaste at the very thought. Caledon Hockley never gives up, and most importantly, he always wins. 

But even Caledon Hockley knew when the game was over. Rose was not coming back. She was at the bottom of the ocean with her gutter rat, the way she wanted to be. Hell, even Ruth had begun to accept this. 

So why couldn't Cal? 

Sighing, he ran a tired hand through his short, dark hair. He wasn't certain, but there was something that nagged at the corner of his mind. He felt as if there were something he had been missing these months, something that would give him the answers he had been searching for . . . something that would lead him to his elusive Rose. 

* * * 

The dust scattered slightly as Rose lifted the lid of the old chest, a cloud of dust rising around her face, causing her to sneeze. The damp heat in the old attack was almost stifling in the warm month of June, but Rose paid no mind as she rummaged through the treasures Lilly had shown her--treasures that had belonged to Jack. 

They were mostly Jack's old drawings--drawings from his childhood, and other memorabilia. Lilly had shown this to her a week ago--the day, actually, that they had gone to visit the friendly town doctor together to confirm her pregnancy. 

After several miserable days of feeling ill, Lilly had persuaded her to go see Dr. McCoy. Rose, of course, knew what they would tell he would tell her--but Lilly! The look on her face when Dr. McCoy had announced to the two ladies that she was with child--it was amazed, shocked, joyful, and sad all at once. But more than anything, it was perfect. Lilly had smiled then, her blue eyes flashing the way Rose remembered Jack's so vividly doing. 

It didn't take long for news to spread around this little community--the widow of that youngest Dawson boy is with child! Rose had unwillingly become the subject of much speculation around town. Rumors and such tend to spread around small communities as fast as news of Titanic's sinking spread around the country. 

And inevitably, the fact that Jack died on Titanic also created wild speculation. The stories that went around town told how Jack had given up his place on the boat for a father of five children, and of how he had used his body to shield his beloved wife against a fallen funnel . . . and so the stories went. 

Jack was obviously a loved person, for apparent reasons. And now he had become a local hero. Rose smiled sadly at the thought as she fingered yet another drawing--this one of a little girl sitting on a swing, wild eyes grinning mischievously out of the picture. "They'll never know how true that is," Rose whispered to the smiling girl in the picture. "He's a hero. He saved both of us." 

Carefully, she tucked the picture away, careful not to smudge the inking. 

Absently, she ran her fingers through the damp strands of her loosened hair, attempting to cool the sweat that clung uncomfortably to her throat. 

"Rose, are you down here?" 

She looked up, slightly startled to see Lilly's blonde head poking up through the entrance in the floor. "I'm here, Lilly." 

"I wanted to talk to you about the teaching job," she said as she pulled herself through the opening, coming to sit next to her sister-in-law. "The principal of the school said he would meet with you for an interview." 

"That's wonderful," Rose said, eyes shining with a happiness she did not experience very often. "Did you explain to him about my . . . condition?" 

"Yes. He understands that you're a widow, which makes your condition perfectly acceptable." 

"Well, that's good," she said, shifting uncomfortably. If anyone so much as suspected that her child was conceived out of wedlock . . . 

"I'm going for a walk. Would you like to come with me? You could use some fresh air--it would be good for you and the baby." 

"Of course," Rose answered, closing the lid of the cedar trunk. She silently said goodbye to Jack's precious drawings as she followed Lilly out of the attic. 

* * * 

Carefully, he sifted through the newspapers of the last couple of months--the months since the "unsinkable" ship sank. The hype that still poured from the press was overbearing--almost scandalous. But these papers were the only clues he had--the only clues he had to find out the true fate of his brother. 

This girl--this Rose--who claimed to have been Jack's husband spoke hardly at all of Jack or the circumstances involving his death. The only thing he knew was that they had been traveling on Titanic. 

But the papers that had collected in John's small apartment all told the same tragic tale, with headlines reading: "Titanic Sinks--1500 Souls Lost", "Great Loss of Life in Titanic Tragedy." 

More recent papers contained updates on the grieving families. And here--the son of Pittsburgh Steel Tycoon loses fiancee. John glanced at the faces of the upper society, unmoved. The picture of the son, one Caledon Hockley, was shown next to the mother of the lost one--Ruth DeWitt Bukater. And there was the lost one, standing next to Ruth, wearing a fake smile in a vain attempt to cover up the sadness in her eyes. He scanned the article, looking for the name of the girl. Ah, there it is . . . Rose DeWitt Bukater. 

John stopped reading, his eyes transfixed by the paper he held clenched in his hands. He did a double-take, studying the rich girl in the picture more closely. It couldn't be . . . but it was. There was no mistaking it. The fiery, curly hair, the flawless features; the girl was the same one whom claimed to be Rose Dawson. 

Intrigued, he read further: 

"Rose DeWitt Bukater, daughter from a wealthy Philadelphia family, was one of the many upper-class that was lost on the Titanic. Fiancé Caledon Hockley from Pittsburgh reportedly has not given up hope that his beloved wife-to-be somehow survived the tragedy. DeWitt Bukater's mother, however, disagrees with Hockley, saying, 'Rose would have come to me. If she'd survived, somehow, she would have come to me. I'm her mother.' Currently, Ruth DeWitt Bukater is staying in the care of Hockley at the Ritz Hotel. 'It's the least I can do,' says Hockley. 'She lost her only daughter after so recently losing her husband.' " 

Slowly John put down the paper. The room seemed to spin around as he attempted to contemplate what he had just read. He played it back in his mind, trying to comprehend the meaning of this. Rose had been an upper-class woman, engaged to this Hockley fellow. She traveled with them on Titanic, but now she shows up in Chippewa Falls claiming to be Jack's widow, while her family continues to believe her to be dead. Why would she do this? Had she fallen in love with Jack--who obviously had to be traveling steerage, unless his drawings had made him rich in the past five years. 

Not very likely. And even less likely that a first class girl would have anything to do with a steerage boy. So why was Rose now masquerading as the widow of Jack Dawson, while she could be living a life of luxury with her dashing, rich gentleman? 

He stood up slowly from his position on the dirty, wooden floor. Either way, this now presented an even bigger scandal. Lilly had told her just the other day that she and Rose had gone to visit the doctor, and discovered that Rose is with child. 

But Rose couldn't have possibly been married to Jack, and she had not married that Hockley fellow. Which meant that Rose was pregnant out of wedlock. 

So whose child is sweet Rose carrying? Jack's or Caledon's? 

John picked the paper back up, fingers gripping it tightly as his eyes burned into the picture. Either way, Caledon would want to know that his fiancee was still alive, and that she was pregnant. 

But if it's not Hockley's--if the baby does indeed turn out to be Jack's, what better way to exact his revenge on his brother's betrayal than to turn over the mother of Jack's child to his enemy? 

A smile spread over his face as his hands trembled slightly. The words he had told Rose several weeks ago rang through his head: *I did love my brother.* 

Yes, he did love Jack. But that didn't stop the pain Jack had caused him. Jack was dead. He would never know. Besides, a rich man like Hockley would undoubtedly compensate him generously . . . 

Continued in Chapter 8! 


End file.
